TOKYO -- Daiki Hata defeated Shoji Maruyama by unanimous decision at the Deep & CMA 2009 Thanksgiving to the Fans Festival on Tuesday at Korakuen Hall, as he locked up a coveted berth in the Dream featherweight grand prix.

Despite several highlight-reel finishes during his run in Pancrase, Maruyama has had a difficult time replicating the success that made him the first lightweight champion in that promotion. His bout with Hata proved no different, as he found himself battling his opponent’s reach, which Hata used to intercept attacks and counter effectively.

Maruyama (6-5-1) landed solid kicks to Hata’s legs to start the bout, but he followed up with quick jabs and combinations that were too far out of range to score cleanly. Meanwhile, Hata (10-5-3) returned fire with quicker jabs and hard overhand right-left hook counters that jarred the Pancrase veteran. As a result, the stumbling Maruyama was forced to go for technically woeful shots en route to single- and double-leg takedown attempts.

Hata defended easily, stuffing Maruyama before he forced the action back to the feet, essentially turning the fight into a kickboxing match. Hata nearly finished his foe in the first period after he landed a Superman punch and dropped Maruyama for 15 seconds of vicious ground-and-pound. Only the bell saved him. After cornermen peeled Maruyama off the mat and patched him up for the second round, however, the former Pancrase champion endured and made it through the remaining two periods.

Hata maintained his dominance standing, though, psyching out Maruyama with wily feints in between landing vicious jabs and hard right straights. Maruyama, to his credit, remained game and never gave up, and he eventually began to land solid punches on Hata in the latter half of the bout. The damage was apparently already done, however, as Hata -- who dictated the flow of the fight and picked apart Maruyama standing -- proved dominant enough for all three judges to rule in his favor.

“I’m not really interested in wrestling; I think wrestling makes matches really boring,” Hata said. “I’d like to fight [Hiroyuki] Takaya in the Dream tournament. Outside of [Norifumi] “Kid” [Yamamoto], there are 13 other folks in the tournament. I’d like to be the strongest striker, but the weakest grappler there. However, I hardly have a month to prepare. I think the odds aren’t very good for me.”

In the only other MMA bout on the card, Asato Hashimoto faced off with Motoki Awaji in a battle of winless competitors.

Awaji (0-2) did little else other than careen into his opponent with wide punches. Hashimoto (1-2-3) used his superior wrestling skills to put his opponent’s back on the canvas, passing at will to side mount, where he threw small, grinding punches to eke out a safe unanimous decision after two rounds.